It’ll take Obama to bury the New Deal (filled under Nixon-China)

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For decades Republicans worked hard to kill FDR’s New Deal. It’s been one of their chief goals.

And in the process, their control of the government they hate so much, created conditions almost similar to those that made the New Deal necessary in the first place.

Still, Obama, who raised more money from Wall Street than incumbent W in 2004 declared he won’t go with what worked before, the raison d’etre of the Democratic party as we used to know it

….rejected the idea of a so-called “new New Deal” for America.

Mr. Obama acknowledged the parallels between the current economic crisis and the problems of the Great Depression, but said that he supported solutions that are “true to our times.”

“For us to simply recreate what existed back in the 30s in the 21st century — I think would be missing the boat,”

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Instead we get the lame GOP blathering that got us where we are:

I think our basic principle that this is a free market system and that that has worked for us, that it creates innovation and risk taking, I think that’s a principle that we’ve got to hold to as well.”

So, now Wall Street Journal wnts to make sure it gets what it paid for – and they pretty much declare: “It’s not like he even has a choice”. or, in their snappy title

Obama Hears a Giant Sucking Sound

His legacy is spent before he gets his hands on it.

(let no one deny Ross Perot’s lasting contribution)

They want FDR’s plan dismantled faster!

His friends advise Barack Obama to launch a “New” New Deal. Maybe that’s because the old New Deal is sinking fast.

Mr. Obama’s one deeply false note during the campaign was his harping on “deregulation” as if that were the source of current troubles. His real problem is the crack-up of the world FDR built.

Wall Street is hungry – and that Social Security moneys W promissed them didn’t come soon enough

The reason is those giant legacies of existing New Dealism known as Social Security and Medicare, about which he was careful to say nothing intelligible during the campaign. These programs worked for a while too, but now their expected revenues are (in present value) about $99.2 trillion short of the expected outlays required to assure present and future workers their promised comfort in retirement.

It’s not like Obama didn’t beat the GOP drum that Social Security was “broken” even during the campaign! So, it woud be consistent to go with Wall Street – after all, how much did Paul Krugman contribute? Not nearly enough. So, how optimistic is Wall Street? Check out the happy ending of this article:

Then again, Mr. Obama did say something in his campaign about tax rebates for all these payroll taxpayers. He also said something about government matching contributions to incentivize today’s low- and middle-income workers to save for their own retirement.

Voilà, personal accounts funded by payroll-tax givebacks — strangely similar to the solution our current president promoted to help workers escape the impending insolvency of the government retirement programs. Mr. Obama envisioned himself extending FDR’s work. He may end up finishing George Bush’s.

Obviously the writers pretend to have missed the friendly cues some of us picked throughout, which explain the funding and the friendly press. And I say they pretend, because back in July they did write an article

Bush’s Third Term

in which they were noting that

We’re beginning to understand why Barack Obama keeps protesting so vigorously against the prospect of “George Bush’s third term.” Maybe he’s worried that someone will notice that he’s the candidate who’s running for it.

Most Presidential candidates adapt their message after they win their party nomination, but Mr. Obama isn’t merely “running to the center.” He’s fleeing from many of his primary positions so markedly and so rapidly that he’s embracing a sizable chunk of President Bush’s policy. Who would have thought that a Democrat would rehabilitate the much-maligned Bush agenda?

So, let’s face it, the “Street” when shoveling those huge contributions at a time most people didn’t even know who Obama was and that he was running for anything, they knew he wasn’t

“envisioning himself extending FDR’s work”

but precisely

the one finishing George Bush’s agenda.

To quote Bill Scheider again, cca january 2008:

Hillary is the anti-Bush, Obama is the a-Bush.

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